in.
along the curve, and having a girth of 35.43 in., while the other and
longer one attains an extreme length along the curve of 13 ft. 7.78
in., with the same extreme circumference as the shorter one. The
weights are respectively 167 and 186 pounds. They were found on the
Kolyma River, northeastern Siberia, by the Russian merchant Gromoff,
and at the time of their discovery were still attached to the skull of
the mammoth. The great curve described by these tusks is shown by the
fact that on a straight line they measure respectively 7 ft. 4.58 in.
and 6 ft. 11.46 in., the shorter measurement on a straight line being
that of the longer of the tusks. They are in perfect condition, showing
both the pulp and the tip intact.*
A
fossil mammoth tusk of extraordinary size comes from a creek near
Kotzebue Sound. It was found by some Eskimos, buried in the frozen
tundra, which never thaws. It is said to be 14 ft. long, 9 in. in
diameter at the largest end, weighs 165 pounds, and is in perfectly
sound condition throughout. It has been pronounced the very best
specimen ever discovered. If the reported length be correct this would
be probably the longest tusk so far recovered, excepting the imperfect
tusks from Rancho La Brea, California, which are supposed to have
originally exceeded 15 ft. in length, and the extraordinary specimens
in the Instituto Geo-logio of Mexico City, as well as that in Briinn.
When during the cruise of the revenue marine steamer Corwin, in
the Arctic Sea in 1885, anchor was cast for a short time at Cape Prince
of Wales, Alaska, the natives offered for barter several large tusks
and bones of the mammoth. We need not be surprised to learn that the
native ideas of the appearance of the extinct mammal were rather wide
of the mark. They supposed that it must have re-
*E. Pfizenmayer in Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1906, p. 328; translation; Washington, 1907.
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